Personal reflection – a Visit with Red – written April 28, 2012
I walk through the door to his room…quietly. He is lying on his left side, his back to the door, his body turned toward the windows, in a fetal position.
His wife of 50 years had put him there. Couldn’t care for him anymore at home. That was a year ago.
Now he didn’t know her name or recognize her face.
The usual visits are the theater of the absurd. Becket’s’ Waiting for Godot. Blank stairs. Monologues. Boredom. Wondering why I go…except…he’s there. I could be too.
I tiptoe around the foot of the bed. I hear his voice. His eyes are closed. His lips are moving. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take” – the prayer he committed to memory as a child.
Slow - Children
He finishes and seems at peace. I pause…quietly speak his name…and place my hand gently on his shoulder. He opens his eyes.
“Good morning, Red. It’s Gordon.”
Blank stare.
“Your pastor…from Knox Church.”
His eyes grow wide. He smiles. He reaches out his hand…and looks me in the eye – a memory unlocked from deep within his soul…beyond the reach of Alzheimer’s.
“The Church Choir” – Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, April 28, 2012
Words sung can be remembered long
after words said. A person with
Alzheimer’s still may sing a song
recalled from church or school. The myth
that music is a gift for few
blessed with a perfect pitch is just
malicious: any in a pew
who talk can sing! Of course, they must
speak S-L-O-W-L-Y and (the hardest thing
of all) must listen to others
around them–and follow the fingers
or baton of conductors
who beg and plead, talk loud or soft
to lure folks into the choir loft
All these years later…I wish I’d sung with Red that day. “Jesus loves me; this I know…” S-L0-W-L-Y… from the choir loft… in the nursing home.
Views from the Edge 
What wonderful comments and experiences shared here…
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I led services in a nursing home whose residents were not very functional. Staff members wheeled them into the room, and most of them sat silently, gazing into space. I read some scripture, talked about it for a minute or two, then turned to the golden oldies.
A friend played guitar, we sang old hymns and recited well-known scriptures and prayers. They could do all that, though they may not have comprehended a word of my very short, intentional, message. Their message was in the music and verses well-etched deep in their souls.
I still treasure those times with the saints of God.
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Indeed.
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Thank you for sharing this, Pastor. To my lay person’s mind, what you’ve described here is really the essence of ministry. All the liturgics, all the business stuff, all the theology and “theology”, all the politics – – ESPECIALLY the politics – – I really don’t think any of this matters.It has to be done, of course, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is visiting a man who doesn’t remember that he knows you and reaching out, expecting nothing in return. That’s ministry.
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Your “lay person’s mind” has it right, Tony. I just posted another post on this same subject – a story from my seminary classmate Harry Strong on a visit with 94-year-old Angie. Thanks so much.
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I am floored. My grandmother has advanced stage Dementia/Alzheimer’s. I am constantly learning new ways to be in the presence of a fellow person’s experience. You’ve reminded me, again, to keep seeking the fullness of the moment as it is, not as I would will it to be. Thank you.
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If you can find the songs she sang as a child…. maybe, just maybe….she will sing.
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I have a story for you, but it is not my own— My friend’s mother dropped unexpectedly into a fugue state. He asked for, and I loaned him, the first book of poetry I ever owned, which is called “The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse in America.” He read to his mother from this book every day. The poems in it are familiar to children of a certain generation, children who memorized poems in school. He read to her from this book every day until the day she passed on. She often would stir and smile when he was reading. The poems were ones she really knew.
I was thinking of this book, and my grandmother, when I was reading your piece a little while ago. Both my grandparents would spontaneously break into memorized verse when I was small. This is a piece of my grandmother’s childhood. This might make her smile.
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What can I say but “Thank You!”
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